by Alex Brandon-Smith » Mon Oct 07, 2019 6:08 pm
reg wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2019 3:24 pm
Another perspective, the TVR club is £55. For that you get a really glossy mag, which is half decent. Good discounts on insurance, I saved £50 off the top. They had three or four TVR only track days so no Lewis Hamilton’s trying to scalp you into turn one, these were all subsided. Some of the owners Sprint, not sure if the club spend on that but it’s suggested. Then regional and national events.
Reg, (and others) comparing ourselves to other clubs is a little difficult tbh but It's good to see what they provide. TVR have a huge amount more cars out there than we do and having charged £55 for quite a while I'm sure it's swollen the coffers somewhat, hence the ability to be able to subsidise and run TVR only track days. Let's not forget they go wrong quite frequently and need more spares that Ariels do!
I would love to be able to run this type of stuff but we simply don't have the money...atm. We are in a difficult halfway house whereby we need to increase the income, in order to provide extra benefits (hopefully like track days one day) but too may people are simply freeloading the system. Karl and the team are trying to find some interim solutions to help us grow to be able to give more back.
The Atom 4 has a huge waiting list and, as such, these people should be getting involved. That's what we're aiming to do, and at £30 it's not exactly a huge amount of money...question is, as what point do we try to increase the cost to give back more. Do we say, increase ourselves to £55 first (just as an example) which could drastically shut down the membership levels instead of proving more money to give back, or keep it at £30, try to use what we have to generate more, then be able to give back once there are more members and more in the koffers? You can see the problem.
We are working on the "LITE" membership which will allow access to those who can't make use of discounts/events etc. I know it's not going to be popular to everyone, but the club has stood still on membership levels for too long really. Even organising events like MSG is a huge risk when hiring places like Thruxton as we did this year. We simply don't have huge amounts of money to take risks and traditionally the members have been, shall we say, laissez-faire on their uptake.
In order for the club to survive, people need to commit more. Those that do commit should see a benefit. That means that those that don't commit will not get the full benefits of course. Hopefully we can all work together to produce some other benefits to help us progress. And don't forget that can come round in a multitude of ways...giving time to help the committee, discounts on printing or anything else we can use to promote the club, finding club discounts if you have a connection somewhere. It's all welcome and ultimately it's what Karl's original post was intending - we want to know how to progress, not necessarily question the idea of protecting the few things which actually have some intrinsic value for the club. I massively appreciate all those people who participate on the forum at any level, and there is still plenty of space for everyone to do so, but it's fairly clear that leaving the forum free for all is not increasing our membership numbers and hence the changes.
John, in answer to your question mate, most are members or registered users, but those few moderators etc are seen to have higher status that club member so it shows their highest rank. Sorry if it causes confusion but there's only about 6 people it should affect.
[quote=reg post_id=296245 time=1570289099 user_id=4972]
Another perspective, the TVR club is £55. For that you get a really glossy mag, which is half decent. Good discounts on insurance, I saved £50 off the top. They had three or four TVR only track days so no Lewis Hamilton’s trying to scalp you into turn one, these were all subsided. Some of the owners Sprint, not sure if the club spend on that but it’s suggested. Then regional and national events.
[/quote]
Reg, (and others) comparing ourselves to other clubs is a little difficult tbh but It's good to see what they provide. TVR have a huge amount more cars out there than we do and having charged £55 for quite a while I'm sure it's swollen the coffers somewhat, hence the ability to be able to subsidise and run TVR only track days. Let's not forget they go wrong quite frequently and need more spares that Ariels do! :roflp: :fence:
I would love to be able to run this type of stuff but we simply don't have the money...atm. We are in a difficult halfway house whereby we need to increase the income, in order to provide extra benefits (hopefully like track days one day) but too may people are simply freeloading the system. Karl and the team are trying to find some interim solutions to help us grow to be able to give more back.
The Atom 4 has a huge waiting list and, as such, these people should be getting involved. That's what we're aiming to do, and at £30 it's not exactly a huge amount of money...question is, as what point do we try to increase the cost to give back more. Do we say, increase ourselves to £55 first (just as an example) which could drastically shut down the membership levels instead of proving more money to give back, or keep it at £30, try to use what we have to generate more, then be able to give back once there are more members and more in the koffers? You can see the problem.
We are working on the "LITE" membership which will allow access to those who can't make use of discounts/events etc. I know it's not going to be popular to everyone, but the club has stood still on membership levels for too long really. Even organising events like MSG is a huge risk when hiring places like Thruxton as we did this year. We simply don't have huge amounts of money to take risks and traditionally the members have been, shall we say, laissez-faire on their uptake.
In order for the club to survive, people need to commit more. Those that do commit should see a benefit. That means that those that don't commit will not get the full benefits of course. Hopefully we can all work together to produce some other benefits to help us progress. And don't forget that can come round in a multitude of ways...giving time to help the committee, discounts on printing or anything else we can use to promote the club, finding club discounts if you have a connection somewhere. It's all welcome and ultimately it's what Karl's original post was intending - we want to know how to progress, not necessarily question the idea of protecting the few things which actually have some intrinsic value for the club. I massively appreciate all those people who participate on the forum at any level, and there is still plenty of space for everyone to do so, but it's fairly clear that leaving the forum free for all is not increasing our membership numbers and hence the changes.
John, in answer to your question mate, most are members or registered users, but those few moderators etc are seen to have higher status that club member so it shows their highest rank. Sorry if it causes confusion but there's only about 6 people it should affect.